Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata (5th century BCE) and the Laws of Manu (2nd century BCE). Barbosa's usage was derived from Persian Chīn ( چین), which was in turn derived from Sanskrit Cīna ( चीन). "China" appears in Richard Eden's 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. Its origin has been traced through Portuguese, Malay, and Persian back to the Sanskrit word Chīna, used in ancient India. The word "China" has been used in English since the 16th century however, it was not a word used by the Chinese themselves during this period.
China is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and a founding member of several multilateral and regional cooperation organizations such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Silk Road Fund, the New Development Bank, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the RCEP, and is a member of the BRICS, the G8+5, the G20, the APEC, and the East Asia Summit.
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China conducted a series of economic reforms since 1978, and entered into the World Trade Organization in 2001.Ĭhina is currently governed as a unitary one-party socialist republic by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Both claim to be the sole legitimate government of China, although the United Nations has recognized the PRC as the sole representation since 1971. The Civil War resulted in a division of territory in 1949 when the Communist Party (CCP) established the People's Republic of China on the mainland while the Kuomintang-led ROC government retreated to the island of Taiwan. China was invaded by the Empire of Japan during World War II. The Chinese monarchy collapsed in 1912 with the Xinhai Revolution, when the Republic of China (ROC) replaced the Qing dynasty. The Qing dynasty, China's last dynasty, which formed the territorial basis for modern China, suffered heavy losses to foreign imperialism in the 19th century. Tang culture spread widely in Asia, as the new Silk Road brought traders to as far as Mesopotamia and the Horn of Africa. The invention of gunpowder and movable type in the Tang dynasty (618–907) and Northern Song dynasty (960–1127) completed the Four Great Inventions. The succeeding Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) saw some of the most advanced technology at that time, including papermaking and the compass, along with agricultural and medical improvements. In the 3rd century BCE, the Qin reunited core China and established the first Chinese empire. Since then, China has expanded, fractured, and re-unified numerous times. For millennia, China's political system was based on absolute hereditary monarchies, or dynasties, beginning with the semi-legendary Xia dynasty in the 21st century BCE.
China was one of the world's foremost economic powers for most of the two millennia from the 1st until the 19th century. The national capital is Beijing.Ĭhina emerged as one of the world's first civilizations in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. The country consists of 23 provinces, four municipalities, five autonomous regions, and two Special Administrative Regions ( Hong Kong and Macau).
Covering an area of approximately 9.6 million square kilometers (3,700,000 sq mi), it is the world's third or fourth largest country. China spans five geographical time zones and borders 14 different countries, the second most of any country in the world after Russia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population of more than 1.4 billion. China ( Chinese: 中国 pinyin: Zhōngguó), officially the People's Republic of China ( PRC Chinese: 中华人民共和国 pinyin: Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó), is a country in East Asia.